1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to customer relationship management (CRM) systems and more specifically to enabling a business entity to validate support for specific activities in a CRM system before migration from earlier versions.
2. Related Art
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are commonly used to assist a business entity in managing the relationships/contacts with its current and prospective customers, in particular, while providing various functions such as marketing campaigns, enquiries, sales, technical support, complaints handling, billing, etc. Siebel CRM product available from Oracle Corporation (the intended assignee of the subject patent application) is an example of such a system.
Activities form the basis for relationship management in CRM systems. Activities represent interactions between the organization and the corresponding customers such as a change of address, payment of a bill, sending an offer, etc., and also administrative actions which facilitate such interactions such as creating an offer, raising an invoice, etc. which are common in customer relationship management. Each activity is manifested as corresponding data in the CRM system typically associated with performance of a sequence of actions (by a customer, a representative or the CRM system). For example, a change of address activity may involve receiving a request from a customer indicating the new address, modifying the data in the CRM system to reflect the new address, and sending a confirmation to the customer as a response to the request.
In general, a CRM system maintains information about the customers, the details of the activities performed (administrative or with each customer), the policies of the business entity, etc., such that representatives of the business entity can access and use such information while managing relationship with customers. In a typical scenario, a CRM system is provided as a “standard” earlier version by a vendor of the CRM system, which is then customized (by changing the code/data modules), according to the requirements of the business entity. The customizations are generally performed to support activities specific to the business entity.
Migration generally refers to the process of transferring data/information between different formats, data types, and/or computer systems and is often necessitated when a CRM system is upgraded from an earlier version (e.g., 7.0) to a later version (e.g. 8.0). Migration may entail modifying a “standard” later version of the CRM system provided by the vendor to incorporate the specific customizations performed for the business entity in the earlier version. Migration thus ensures that the desired activities are supported with the later version of the CRM system as well.
An often important consideration associated with migration is validation. Validation entails verifying that the customizations performed in the earlier version of the CRM system are or would be properly/satisfactorily migrated to the later version. In particular, it may be desirable to validate that specific activities (in particular, those that are critical or unique to the business entity) that can be performed in the earlier version, are supported in the later version of the CRM system.
In one prior approach, validation is performed by testing the CRM system after migration of the customizations to the later version. Migrations typically require considerable time (e.g., 2 to 3 years) and accordingly post-migration validation is delayed until such time. Therefore, if a decision is later made to revert back to an earlier version, substantial time/resources may be wasted.
Aspects of the present invention address one or more of the problems noted above.
In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements. The drawing in which an element first appears is indicated by the leftmost digit(s) in the corresponding reference number.